关键词: 尺牍, 尺牍教本, 尺牍程式, 尺牍改良

Abstract: In pace with the influx of Western learning, school education, as well as typographic and lithographic printing agencies flourished, which resulted in a large number of newly compiled epistolary guidebooks in the late Qing dynasty. Informed by English letterwriters as well as the stylistic rules and layout of the newly introduced textbooks, the traditional epistolary genre was first embraced by the newstyle literary education as part of children’s readers and textbooks. Since then, a particular kind of “epistolary textbooks” emerged, followed by a variety of primers introducing different types of epistolary writing such as students’ letter writing, women’s letter writing and vernacular letter writing. All those newly compiled textbooks focused on teaching the forms of letter writing. As a form of “practical writing”, traditional epistolography fit well with utilitarian education that had gained greater momentum since the early modern times. However, the tension between “practical use” and “vain text” gradually manifested itself along with the collapse of moral order and etiquette, ending up with a reform of the traditional epistolary genre. Such a process was not accomplished overnight. For a certain period of time, the new content and style of epistolary writing coexisted with the old forms.

Key words: traditional Chinese epistolography, late Qing epistolary guidebooks, epistolary form, reform of chidu